FORMER SMOKER TAKES STAND

In his own words Friday, first in a videotape, John Lukacs told a Miami jury that in 1943, when he was an eager, young Navy pilot training to fight the Nazis, he started smoking because tobacco advertisements led him to believe "it was cool."

Later, in person, through a half-paralyzed mouth with no tongue, Lukacs brought jurors to tears when he explained he was in court suing three tobacco companies, "so that other people don't have to be."

Lukacs, 77, contends it was the tobacco companies' misleading advertising and suppression of data linking smoking to disease that led him to smoke the cigarettes that hooked him, and caused the cancer that is expected to kill him before the end of the year. He is one of the estimated 500,000 to 700,000 sick Florida smokers who are part of the first statewide class-action case against Big Tobacco. So far, the class has been successful.

Another jury in Miami has already ruled that the tobacco companies manufacture a product that causes numerous types of cancer. That jury also ruled that the companies lied about the health risks of cigarettes, defrauding their customers.

Two years ago, the jury told the nation's top five cigarette companies to pay a record-setting $145 billion in punitive damages to the class. Big Tobacco appealed that verdict, setting off a process that will take years to conclude before class members might be able to go to court individually and ask a jury for a portion of the $145 billion.

Lukacs doesn't have years. He asked for his day in court before the appeals process is finished. If he wins, Lukacs said he would put that verdict aside until the appeals process is complete.

Last month the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami granted the dying man his wish.

The tobacco companies contend they should not be held responsible for Lukacs because he made the choice to smoke.

If this jury agrees with Lukacs, it will have to determine how much money cigarette makers Brown & Williamson, Philip Morris and the Liggett Group should pay as punishment for their actions and to compensate the former Miami lawyer for his pain and suffering. It was the Lucky Strikes, Chesterfields and Marlboro brand cigarettes that these companies made and Lukacs smoked until he quit, cold turkey, in 1971.

The jurors' emotional roller-coaster of a day began Friday, with the playing of a videotaped deposition that Lukacs gave last year. On the tape, he answered questions from tobacco company lawyers in a voice slightly garbled. The cause of the impediment was a hole created when a piece of cancerous tissue was cut from his tongue in the first of what would be two oral surgeries.

The second surgery occurred shortly after he gave the deposition. During that operation, doctors removed Lukacs' tongue and the bottom of his mouth, which had been invaded by the still-advancing cancer cells.

Lukacs testified that after his discharge from the Navy in 1947, he moved to Miami with a half-pack-a-day habit. Over the next 24 years, his smoking escalated to three packs a day.

Eventually, Lukacs said, he developed "a white substance ... a firm sheet over my tongue." Eventually the white patches spread to the inside of his cheeks. A dentist told him this condition, called leukoplachia, was pre-cancerous. He kept smoking.

In the late 1960s, as his children entered their teens and began to experiment with cigarettes, Lukacs found the determination to quit.

"They told me they'd never known me to do anything bad and I smoke," he said. "I told them that if they didn't start, then I'd stop. That was about 1971. I was suffering from an insatiable appetite for cigarettes."

Twenty years later Lukacs was diagnosed with bladder cancer. The jury has learned that between repeated surgeries to have bladder tumors removed, Lukacs submitted to an excruciating chemotherapy process, requiring the powerful chemicals to be flushed up his urinary tract and into his bladder.

In the deposition, Lukacs admitted he ate fried foods, grilled red meat and that he grew up near the polluted "rust belt" of western Pennsylvania -- all environmental factors the tobacco lawyers suggested could have caused the cancer. Tobacco lawyers have also talked to the jury about "declining risk," a theory that the longer one goes without smoking, the better one's chances of not getting sick.

The jury also heard Lukacs had four tongue biopsies in the 1990s. The first three showed no signs of cancer, and Lukacs declined his doctor's suggestion that he have the problematic spot removed as a precaution. It wasn't until a fourth biopsy showed cancer in 1999 that he had his first oral surgery.

Late in the afternoon, Lukacs entered the courtroom looking thin, drained and wearing eyeglasses and a patch over his right eye. He was there, accompanied by his wife and son-in-law Miles McGrane, who is also one of his lawyers, to testify in person. He and his lawyers could have relied on just the video.

On the witness stand, Lukacs spoke out of the left side of his mouth. The right side stayed shut, drooping from nerve damage caused by the second oral surgery. A laptop computer was placed on the witness stand so he could speak and then type his words that would then appear on a 6-foot screen before the jury.

"I will try to speak slowly ... so you can understand me, because this a little bit cumbersome," he told the jury. His words were garbled, as though he had something foreign in his mouth. He became frustrated by his typographical errors and apologized.

The judge and court stenographer said they could understand him without much difficulty, and the jury signaled that they could, too. So Lukacs plunged ahead.

"In general, cigarette advertising glorified cigarettes ... and said cigarettes were very enjoyable, very macho, everybody does it," he said. "I always remember one that said, 'More doctors smoke Chesterfields than any other brand.'"

"Were you influenced by this advertising?" asked Philip Gerson, one of his lawyers.

"I don't know how to answer that," Lukacs said. "It was supposed to look cool, to sell their products. I thought it was cool. So, I guess I was."

When did you begin to know that smoking causes cancer, Gerson asked him.

"That would be about the time the surgeon general made public comments that cigarette smoking caused certain illnesses. Although at first, it wasn't said to cause cancer. They referred to pulmonary problems. Then a later report from the surgeon general mentioned it caused lung cancer. ... That was in the '60s."

"When did you learn it caused bladder cancer?" Gerson asked.

"Not until I got it in 1991," Lukacs said.

"How do you feel about being here?" Gerson asked.

"I love the courtroom. But I'm on the wrong side," said the former lawyer, his voice choking with emotion. "I feel very badly," he said, starting to cry.

One female juror fumbled in her purse and pulled out a tissue to wipe her eyes, while another just used her hands to brush away tears. Steve Hunter, another of Lukacs' lawyers, began pouring his client a cup of water. Then McGrane, the son-in-law, stopped him, reminding him Lukacs cannot drink. The jury has heard that he must be fed liquid nourishment three times a day through a tube.

When Lukacs appeared to regain his composure, Gerson asked him another question: "Why are you here today?"

"Hopefully, so other people won't have to be."

Then he cried.

Terri Somers can be reached at tsomers@sun-sentinel. com or 954-356-4849.